WONDERLAND: AN ANTHOLOGY / AUTHOR: VARIOUS / PUBLISHER: TITAN BOOKS / RELEASE DATE: 17TH SEPTEMBER
The 1865 novel Alice in Wonderland has been the source for a great many stories and spin-off ideas (it helps that it’s so old that the work is in the public domain). Titan Books’ latest anthology, Wonderland, is the latest in a long line to use Lewis Carroll’s classic bit of literary nonsense as a source for other more interesting ideas. It’s edited by those masters of horror, Marie O’Regan and Paul Kane, who have been responsible for some cracking scary stories themselves.
Wonderland is thus slanted in the direction of the deliciously dark. O’Regan and Kane have assembled a collection of some of the most interesting creators of spooky tales in the industry, and each of them hang a lovely yet grim fairytale around Alice’s story. Let’s go down the rabbit hole and take a look at some of the tales this collection has to offer.
M.R. Carey’s contribution, There Where No Birds to Fly, spins a new take on the The Walrus and the Carpenter as a tale of post-apocalyptic survival. This is rather refreshing given how over-analysed that particular poem has become. Genevieve Cogman, who is better known for spinning tales of alternate realities, turns Alice’s story into a post-war spy drama. It’s splendidly played and well-paced, yet appropriately dark. Doctor Who writer Robert Shearman takes a valiant stab at emulating Carroll’s unique style of storytelling to regale us with Wonders Never Cease, a story of Alice after her adventure. It fails to hit the mark narratively, but it sets the mood for other stories splendidly. The way the stories are ordered has clearly been carefully calculated, tempering the reader’s mood as they flit from tale to tale.
Juliet Mariller explores Carroll’s style with Good Dog Alice, a canine retelling that feels on theme yet strangely out of place with the more shocking stories in the collection. Still it’s grisly enough, and we’re a sucker for stories with dogs in them. Angela Slatter gives us a more hard-boiled and American take on the character and, again, though it doesn’t quite hit the mark, it’s still a fun and fascinating read. Lillith Saintcrow, who is best known for her urban fantasy work, surprises us all with a cyberpunk tale. It’s very apt, working perfectly well with Alice’s world, and it’s also rather cheeky.
One of the things that makes this collection fascinating is seeing how various others try to imitate the source material. This never fails to delight, especially if you’re familiar with the author’s work. Overall, Wonderland is a really interesting collection of tales, one that will amuse fans of Alice and genre fiction alike.
